"Too Many New Rule Sets" Topic

Yes Weasel, those two dominate the market because of… successful GW-style marketing, and most of their sales are to the same relatively youthful market segment that buys the products of GW and its imitators; and you know as well as I do that most of those gamers will never move beyond that type of product.

How does that indisputable fact relate to the central point of this thread?

The existence of a few relative commercial giants (Saga's in there too), mostly closely adhering to the GW marketing formula, hasn't stemmed the ceaseless flood of new rules releases for WW2 or any other period – the majority of which don't achieve even a tiny fraction of the major movers' sales figures, but do serve to dissipate the gaming 'energy' of the much smaller, older dedicated historical market segment in the manner I've described.

There's a solution, Henry Martini. If you feel your gaming energy is being dissipated by new rules then stick to what you know. Don't try the new releases and tell your wargaming mates that you will only play whatever your current default sets are.

Cheers,
Aaron

Rule writers like myself do not do it primarily for money. We do it out of necessity to get a game we want to play. The majority games (not ancients its ages since I played them) seem to be aimed at a certain light hearted players who want to have points systems and play random folk here and there without a detailed study of the history. And chane rules for the sheer hell of it. That is where the money is.

Our rules are for the few who want something different, more taxing but not more reading. The players need to play regularly and understand potentially in some detail hoe the real world tactics were implemented. They do not do well well at multi players games with inexperienced players. Hopefully somebody will write a better set but we have not found one yet.

What would be good is an independent catalogue of games and their merits and de-merits but this in itself is a minefield. I would not want to restrict creativity, its the only way we will move forward. Big industry is there for the benefit of themselves. They would not write a set of rules that used less of their miniatures.

Henry –

Yes Weasel, those two dominate the market because of… successful GW-style marketing, and most of their sales are to the same relatively youthful market segment that buys the products of GW and its imitators; and you know as well as I do that most of those gamers will never move beyond that type of product.

If the part of the hobby that makes the vast majority of the money is marketed to young people then wouldn't that pretty much settle that the hobby isn't "greying" ?

I don't know that they don't move beyond those things.
Why wouldn't they? We did.

Kids aren't any dumber today than they were 25 years ago.

the majority of which don't achieve even a tiny fraction of the major movers' sales figures, but do serve to dissipate the gaming 'energy' of the much smaller, older dedicated historical market segment in the manner I've described.

What if the older dedicated historical market wasn't that passionate about a single game to begin with?

I think a lot of people are passionate about the models they collect, but rules are viewed as interchangeable.

My Crossfire army will serve just fine for Hail of Fire or WRG 25-50.

Just have to toss in that 34 different toothpaste – or any similar comparison – is way off the mark. With the exception of solo players (and then, only maybe in a way), you don't need two people to play with the toothpaste but you do need an opponent for a game with a set of rules for miniatures, or maybe a whole set of opponents – at least for what I consider what makes the hobby worthy of our time, having a duel of minds once engaged in an actual game.

I don't condemn choice or people writing rules, I just see the end result of the current phenomena of a new ruleset a day (or more likely per month, maybe week) is so diluting as to create nothing but an indigestible mud stew. I don't think it will entirely kill off the hobby but I do think it is a MAJOR deterrent to growth of the historical miniature side of things. Fantasy will move forward, sic-fi too, and WWII and Napoleonics seem safe – for now. ACW, maybe?

But all other periods are already minority periods and excessive rules dilute an already too small group of 'like-minded' individuals. Even Ancients, once a stalwart, seems to have faded to shadow of its former popularity – though that may stem from it really being a period of push a line forward and smack each other in the middle until someone gets the right 'pips.' For me, that is the epitome of boring. But to each their own.

So, Otto, I'll have to disagree that Phil said it all. Lots of cogent arguments here for the differing sides of the debate. I think my position is pretty clear. And, clearly, I have no problem arguing for my position – even sometimes against overwhelming odds. And when I do so, I usually am pretty clear my "opinion" is the "right" one. Opinions being what they are, of course.

I don't think it will entirely kill off the hobby but I do think it is a MAJOR deterrent to growth of the historical miniature side of things.

I think 'The Hobby' will, like all other things, expand and contract over time, both in terms of volume of rules/models and interest without there possibly being any correlation between the two.

The US/Canada and Europe are very different gaming enviroments, so what may be a factor contributing to growth or contraction in one may have no effect (or even the reverse effect) in the other.